Day number amazing

Wow. Awesome.
You should be jealous.
We had a day.
Boy-diggity.

Our morning was brief but nice. Breakfast at Karen's: eggs and fresh vegetables and juice and toast. She then gave us some homemade pesto and fresh tomatoes and sent us on our way. Our way was out to a hot sauce festival in a place called Jungle Jim's, which is the most extravagantly absurd grocery store I've ever seen. They have sections for various countries and a huge cheese selection and singing animatronics, including a band made of General Mills cereal pushers.

The festival was wonderful. We tried a great many sauces. Several of which were uncomfortably hot. Trefor definitely got the worst of the intense heat, and therefore the best bragging rights, with an innocently labeled bottle that took him down for quite some time. There were many chilis and salsas and sauces and two crafty teenage girls selling lemonade. We each took home two bottles of Flavor Before Fire sauce (two for five, hot and atomic), and Trefor also got something called (I believe) Lucifer's Blood. We split a bottle of apple hot sauce which was not too hot but delicious. We intend to throw some on ice cream at a later time in the trip.

Leaving the festival we decided to run over to the Creation Museum, which we had seen a billboard for driving into Cincinnati. We weren't sure if we'd have enough time to get there, see it, and make it to our Chicago campsite in time to check in. But we decided to do it anyway. Worth the risk. So we headed over. It was incredible. And I mean that in the most literal sense. It was eighteen dollars apiece (with discount for filling out a form telling them where we live) to get in, followed by an enormous line of people. It seems that the Creation Museum can't handle its own popularity. There were a bunch of families and dozens of church groups and Trefor and I. They had some great displays. Animatronics and live finches and a chameleon. The first half of the museum (which is essentially a long twisting hallway) was totally packed. In the middle was a video ("The Sixth Day": an absurdly dramatic reading of the beginning of Genesis), and after that it was a thick but manageable crowd. We split up, mostly unintentionally, and I got pretty far ahead of Trefor, but I got some nice pictures and he shot a bunch of great video. It was an enlightening experience. For instance: fossils? Made by Noah's flood.

We then drove to (and through) Chicago, and made it to our campsite shortly before they shut down. We set up the tent and had a dinner of pesto and tomato sandwiches (delicious, thank you) and we are now sitting in the tent using the internet. Because that is camping now. We're maybe ten feet from the next tent and twenty from a playground and there are fireworks going off outside. It's wonderful. All day has been wonderful. Incidentally, the tent we are in is made for two people, but the two people it was made for are more intimate than Trefor and I are. It's amusing to see our tiny tent beside the behemoth one lot over.

I'm going to go sit on the swings and maybe take some pictures of the campgrounds. Also maybe eventually sleep.